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to be someone’s first choice.
and spunky, but she’s left picking up the pieces from her ex’s lies and
manipulations, and daydreaming about taking a scalpel to his scrotum.
is what he does best.
loyal, but he wants the most off-limits woman in his world, and nothing will
ever make that a reality.
mutual benefit.
dates.
well.
than six dates.
a romantic relationship is required, and they expect nothing more from their
time together. There will be none of those
benefits involved.
together—very naked and even more hungover—the terms and conditions of their
arrangement no longer apply. Now they’re faced with something riskier than
exposing their fake relationship:
letting go of the past and zipping up the future.
fall apart before they can be put back together.
between us. “These are my favorite pretzel bites in the city. Try
some.”
“Are you just trying to get me in a good mood?” I asked. “I did eat lunch today.”
asked, dipping two pretzels in the accompanying sauce. “What did you have?
Based on you yelling at me about noticing your shoes, I’d say it was an iced
venti skinny latte.”
replied. And an iced venti skinny latte but I wasn’t copping to that just yet.
laugh, and failed. “Almonds?” he repeated.
almonds, yes.” I folded my arms across my chest. “It was an
appropriate amount of calories, fat, protein, and carbs.”
another pretzel. “I don’t want to live in a world where a few
almonds—chocolate or otherwise—are lunch.” He pointed to the plate and
pushed his beer toward me. “Eat. Drink. Please.”
and pretzels. I hated being told what to do. Just fucking hated it. But then my
stomach growled—goddamn it—and Riley
shot me a pointed glance.
rumbling stomach is the sign of hunger,” I said, reaching for his glass. I
drained the beer and then selected a pretzel for dipping. “It is not.”
expression flat. It gave me a moment to study him while choosing another
pretzel. He was wearing jeans, a tailored shirt with the cuffs rolled up to his
elbows, and a pinstriped vest, and his hair was a wreck. It looked like he’d
been tugging the dark strands in every conceivable direction. His eyes were
rimmed with a bit of red and his lids heavy, as if he’d been rubbing them or
hadn’t gotten much sleep. Perhaps both. There was a small notebook beside his
phone, and a mechanical pencil tucked into the spiral binding.
attractive than I knew how to handle. Even tired and irritable, and ordering me
to eat his pretzels and drink his beer, he was hot as fuck. I bit into another
pretzel and offered him a small smile.
chip on your shoulder is massive or epic?” he asked. There was no hint of
amusement in his tone, and he was staring at me with more ice than I’d believed
he could muster. It didn’t feel like we were sniping at each other anymore.
“It might be semantics to you but I’m trying to get a feel for what I’m
dealing with here.”
hands found my leg under the table. He squeezed and rubbed his thumb along the
hollow of my knee, and I started to believe I’d been all wrong about this man.
There was the player and there was the overgrown kid, but there was so much
more than that.
Kate Canterbary doesn’t have it all figured out, but this is what she knows for sure: spicy-ass salsa and tequila solve most problems, living on the ocean–Pacific or Atlantic–is the closest place to perfection, and writing smart, smutty stories is a better than any amount of chocolate. She started out reporting for an indie arts and entertainment newspaper back when people still read newspapers, and she has been writing and surreptitiously interviewing people—be careful sitting down next to her on an airplane—ever since. Kate lives on the water in New England with Mr. Canterbary and the Little Baby Canterbary, and when she isn’t writing sexy architects, she’s scheduling her days around the region’s best food trucks.